Predicted Lightning lineup tonight: Tampa Bay's projected lineup for preseason game against Florida Panthers | Oct. 2nd, 2024

The Tampa Bay Lightning will host the Florida Panthers on Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET. Tampa Bay has three games left in preseason play before it begins its regular season on Oct. 11 against the Carolina Hurricanes.

With only a few preseason games left, the Lightning will play the majority of their starters on Wednesday.

Ahead of the preseason game, here's how the Lightning lines could look like:

Predicted Lightning lineup tonight

Forwards

• Jake Guentzel - Brayden Point - Nikita Kucherov
• Brandon Hagel - Anthony Cirelli - Connor Sheary
• Maxim Groshev - Zemgus Girgensons - Jesse Ylonen
• Ethan Gauthier - Connor Geekie - Dylan Duke

The Lightning also recalled forward Dylan Duke from the AHL which will give him another shot at making the roster.

Guentzel, the top free agent acquisition, is back playing alongside Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point which is projected to be one of the top lines in the NHL this season.

“Those two guys especially are just elite players in this league, top players in the league," Guentzel said via NHL.com. "From afar you watch those guys and those are two guys you try to watch more times than anyone."

"They’re obviously really high-skilled players, they obviously can score a lot of goals, make a lot of plays. So if that comes about where I’m playing with them, I’m really excited to try to get open for them, get them the puck as much as possible."

Defenseman

• Victor Hedman - JJ Moser
• Ryan McDonagh - Erik Cernak
• Emil Lilleberg - Darren Raddysh

This will likely be Tampa Bay's defensive pairings come opening night. JJ Moser was acquired in the Mikhail Sergachev deal and he has built chemistry with Victor Hedman.

Goalies

• Andrei Vaslievskiy
• Jonas Johansson

Vasilevskiy was the first goalie off the ice in morning skate which implies he will likely make his first start of the preseason.